A Chilean athlete qualifies his Venezuelan rival for hunger

The Chilean football federation has made a formal apology for a comment by one of its youth team players in which the Venezuelan player was described as hungry, referring to the suffering of Venezuelans from a crushing economic crisis.

In the standings that ended yesterday with Venezuela's 2-1 win over Chile, Venezuelan defender Pablo Bonilla came in late in the second half to kick the ball from striker Nicolas Diaz.

The Chilean striker appeared unhappy with the intervention and attacked the Venezuelan defender and described him as hungry according to the shots shown by the cameras.

The attack has sparked widespread criticism and prompted the Chilean Football Federation to offer a formal apology to Venezuela in an effort to end the problem and avoid a diplomatic crisis.

The statement included the apology of the player, who was also quick to publish an apology through his accounts of social networking sites.

The crisis came on the back of the suffering of Venezuelans from a difficult economic crisis, which caused a large number of them to flee to neighboring countries in search of better living conditions after the prices in their country record rates with the devaluation of the local currency.

There are currently some 200,000 Venezuelans in Chile who have fled their country in the past two years.